Sats results are out, and they sound like good news: 67% of 11-year-olds in England achieved at least a level 4, the standard expected of the age group, in reading, writing and maths, which is up 3% from 64% last year.

"Big discrepancy in writing results between boys and girls - 75% overall get level 4, but is 81% for girls, 68% for boys."

Schools minister Nick Gibb seems most interested in the one in three (183,000 pupils in all) who failed to achieve the level expected of them in reading, writing and maths:

"These are children who began school in 2005. Labour's legacy is a third of children who can't reach the basic standard in the 3 Rs and thousands of 11-year-olds who have a reading age of a seven-year-old or below."

Cook (@xtophercook) is taking on the vexed question of why newspaper coverage might lead one to the conclusion that being glamorous and female is the key to A-level success:

"This is partly because many journalists are moral degenerates. QED. But what might shock you is the enthusiasm with which schools encourage the use of pictures of pulchritudinous blondes. Indeed, a little cadre of English private schools compete to supply attractive young women to the national press."

• Peter Wilby gets a long sought interview with the outgoing head of Cheltenham Ladies' College, Vicky Tuck, who tells him:

"I get annoyed when parents say: I want to send her to a single-sex school because it'll be nice and safe. Of course, it'll be safe in some ways, delaying all the stuff teenagers deal with. But this isn't a pink, frilly school."

"Cheltenham Ladies' College will be the female Eton when half the cabinet is made up of its old girls."

Guardian views

• Janet Murray (@jan_murray) canvasses opinion on whether people are snobbish about vocational skills. Plumber Charlie Mullins tells her no one in his field uses the word "vocational":

" We should be talking about 'getting a trade', something many parents used to aspire to for their kids as recently as the 1970s. The fact that, just to get the subject out there for public discussion, you have to come up with a work that plumbers like me don't even use, says it all really."

Education news from around the web

• The schooling of up to 100,000 children in the travelling community is being put at risk by cuts to council funding, an investigation by The Independent has revealed. Nearly half of 127 authorities have either abolished their traveller education service or drastically cut staff levels, Freedom of Information responses show. As a result, the education of the children of England's 300,000 travellers – who have the poorest grades and attendance of any ethnic minority – is in jeopardy.

Joint president of the National Association of Teachers of Travellers, Linda Lewins, says:

"I'm gobsmacked by the speed at which it has happened. I'm watching 20 years of hard work being pulled apart."

• Feathers have been ruffled over at Ucas (@ucas_online) by this headline in the Independent:

"Prepare for university places chaos, admissions chief warns."

The story continues:

"More than 200,000 university applicants will fail to get places this year, the head of the admissions service has warned, in a repeat of last summer's chaotic scramble following the publication of A-level results.

A 'carbon copy' of last year's confusion, when 210,000 people did not get places, is inevitable, especially with record interest from teenagers ahead of increasing tuition fees next year, according to Ucas."

Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook responds:

"Ucas is concerned about the effect that misleading headlines can have on applicants, particularly with A-level results day so close. There was no 'places chaos' last year and we are not warning of such a situation this year. In 2010 UCAS placed over 46,000 applicants through clearing and the number of applicants using the system is likely to be similar this year."

"In what could be seen as a damning indictment of our state schools, a study has found that 11.3% of school funding comes from parents educating their children privately, almost double the 6.2% in France and well above 4.8% in the Netherlands, 3.2% in Italy, and just 0.1% in Portugal. In the USA, the comparable figure is still only 8.6%."

But hang on a moment:

"This research … was actually undertaken back in 2007 and those are the most recent figures. In economic terms, that is certainly the good ol' days. We were still living it large on a volcano of credit that was yet to explode beneath us. Since then, there have been plenty of parents forced to reconsider their opposition to state schools, simply because they couldn't afford to send their little princes and princesses private any more."

•Two maths teachers have created a rap video to get their students interested in the subject, the Evening Standard tells us. Rupert Stock and Daljeet Sandhu of Sydenham School in Lewisham recorded themselves rapping about maths formulae to the sound of Black and Yellow by American rapper Wiz Khalifa.

On Guardian Teacher Network

We're marking National Kissing Day with resources from the British Heart Foundation including a film of people's memories of great kisses, ending with the tale of a girl saved by CPR, the greatest kiss of all. The British Heart Foundation is campaigning for all children at secondary school to learn emergency life support skills, including CPR. Find out about ELS teaching, and download a colourful guide.

Tell the Guardian about your school's A-level and GCSE achievements

The Guardian would like to highlight your pupils' GCSE and A-level success this summer. We are asking schools to respond to a few quick questions about their pupils' results as soon as you receive them - on 18 August for A-levels and 25 August for GCSEs. Please take a note of the following web pages and return to them to fill in your results on those days:

Whether it's sharing good news or handling a crisis, headteachers and school management teams need to be able to handle the media in all of its forms. This one-day seminar in association with the NAHT is essential for new and aspiring heads as well as established school leaders who wish to update their knowledge. It includes a session on social media.

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